She’s the get-the-job-done type

The woman leaned into an open glass window at the Public Safety Building and fed Spokane police Officer Sue Mann her recent problems about a sister who was using her name to ruin her credit.

Mann listened intently and fired back information with the grace of a Marine drill sergeant. Abrupt, yet efficient, Mann agreed to write a report and send it to court officials in Lewis County informing them that they are after the wrong woman.

“This is what I deal with every day,” Mann said with a deadpan stare. “Sometimes it’s court screw-ups, sometimes it’s officer screw-ups or it’s people screw-ups. We try to find the help they need.”

Mann, who started working at the department in 1988, received the department’s employee of the quarter award from Chief Roger Bragdon in a brief ceremony Thursday that caught her off-guard.

“In your assignment at the front desk, you are the first – and possibly the only – contact many citizens will have with the police department regarding their individual problems,” Bragdon said.

“You are direct and clear with the information you convey, often more clear than some citizens would like,” he said to laughs. “You’ve turned what used to be the dreaded ‘desk duty’ into a highly complex, smoothly running machine.”

Solving problems is just Mann’s first job. She’s a one-person clearinghouse for training volunteers, showing new officers the computer system and keeping track of every uniform and piece of equipment that officers use.

She also runs computer checks for runaways from other departments and keeps updated logs of officer phone numbers, addresses, assignments and days off, Bragdon said.

“It’s one of the hardest jobs in the department. She is one of the get-the-job-done type of people,” Bragdon said. “Few, if any, other members of this department could operate with such a high degree of efficiency.”

Before helping the woman with credit problems, Mann worked with another woman who asked if the department had her protection order on file.

The woman told Mann that she was moving here from another state to get away from a man who had abused her. She obtained the protection order, which is active in all states, but for some reason Mann couldn’t find it in the computer.

“She was very concerned that we didn’t have the order of protection,” Mann said. “She was right.”

Officials in the woman’s home state hadn’t properly filed the order. Mann told the woman that she had to travel back to that state to get the problem corrected.

“She doesn’t want to get it done here, because that tells him that she is here,” Mann said of the abuser, who is due out of prison next spring.

Volunteer Marguerite “Peggy” Young said the woman seemed pleased that Mann had solved the problem, even though she had to drive back to her former home.

“This is Grand Central Station,” said Young, who has volunteered since 1988. “You name it, we’ve heard it.”

She marveled at the job that Mann does every day.

“She’s a human dictionary as far as helping people with the law. She knows that computer better then the computer does,” Young said. “She’ll work all day if that’s what it takes to help them.”

Department officials can tell when Mann has a day off, said Lt. Dean Sprague, who nominated Mann for the honor. She has transformed a job that once was reserved for officers who needed time to do homework, heal from an injury or get out of the chief’s dog house into an indispensable position, Sprague said.

“She’ll create a solution if one isn’t readily available. She’s our own Radar O’Reilly,” said Sprague, comparing Mann to the company clerk on the TV show “MASH.” “If she leaves, we are going to be in a world of hurt.”